Stories by Jeremy Rees

A new history of modern China offers an alternative view on its meteoric economic rise. Frank Dikotter's China after Mao: The rise of a superpower builds its picture from the ground up.

A new book by historian Philip Snow examines the four centuries of contact between China and Russia who have become, he says, the world's "Leaders of the Opposition" to the West.

Foreign correspondent Tania Branigan explores how the Cultural Revolution continues to shape China in her new book, Red Memory

As China continues to flex its global muscles, a new book, Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire, offers clues to its ambitions in Central Asia - and the resulting tensions.

Two new books claim that greed has sold out Western interests to try to get a foothold in China. The focus is on Hollywood and political leaders.

Chiarman Mao's beloved character continues to wreak havoc through humour, banter and scrapes in the latest translation of Monkey King; Journey to the West, a Chinese literary classic.

Megan Walsh maps the diversity and division among writers in modern China in her exuberant short book, The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why it Matters.

Book review Kingdom of Characters. Cultural historian Jing Tsu's tale of the evolution of the Chinese script is a surprisingly wild ride.

Chinese contrarian artist Ai Weiwei writes a memoir that is as much about his dissident-poet father and his hopes for his son, as it about himself. Reviewed by Jeremy Rees.

A Chinese woman joins a family of Kazakh nomads in a bid to understand how they live and survive.

A new book on the Battle of Okinawa looks at whether the losses led the White House to contemplate dropping the atomic bomb.